AIArchitect

Across the Institute: In Austin, Detroit, London, Little Rock

Austin, Detroit, London, Little Rock

Austin, Texas
Second Act

The Texas Society of Architects relaunched its award winning magazine Texas Architect
in January, just in time for the publication’s 62nd birthday. The move
comes after an organization-wide rebranding of its identity and website
in 2011 by Herman Dyal, FAIA, principal of Austin-based Dyal and
Partners. “The idea was to loosen up the format while also enhancing the
interior navigation,” says Texas Architect’s editor Stephen
Sharpe, Hon. TSA. “Our readers are visual, so it was critical that we
respect their way of receiving information.” Published bimonthly, Texas Architect first appeared in 1950 as a 24-page pamphlet.

Detroit
Freeze Frame

Bernard Tschumi, FAIA, famously explored the
relationship between architecture, film, and the urban fabric in his
1976 “Screenplays” project. Continuing this line of inquiry, the Society
of Architectural Historians has partnered with the Detroit Youth
Foundation (DYF) to produce a series of videos at its annual convention
this month. The videos are intended to be about more than the city,
they’re about collective memory. Individual buildings, building
complexes, neighborhoods, and landscapes. Detroit Historical Hotspots (as the series is called) is part of DYF’s ongoing YouthVille Detroit program.

London
Make Time for Design

Fancy the Aston Martin? How about the
Penguin paperback? Anyone for Archigram? “British Design 1948–2012:
Innovation in a Modern Age” at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum
tracks the country’s creative output since the fade of postwar
austerity, with an eye toward the tensions that defined the 20th
century: history versus modernity and craft versus mass production. The
exhibition, which coincides with London’s 2012 Olympic games, will be on
view until Aug. 12.

Little Rock, Ark.
Bridge Tournament

Commercial retrofits? Sure. Houses? You bet.
But how many architects get the chance to design a bridge? Randy Murphy,
AIA, of Cromwell Architects, and Bob Dahms, of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, tied for first place in an ideas competition to replace
Little Rock’s Broadway Bridge. Metroplan, the metropolitan planning
organization which sponsored the competition, garnered more than 5,500
public votes for 10 final entries. The Arkansas State Highway and
Transportation Department is scheduled to begin the $45 million project
next year.